Bio: Dude, Chore Girl and Wrangler, 1946-1950’s. Descriptor: Learning ranching from Ollie and Twila Van Winkle, and George Clover while earning their respect.
Ann’s Story: One of my first memories of White Grass Ranch was in 1946, my first of many summers at the ranch. My family often stayed from June to September so this place became home to all of us.
Ollie Van Winkle was the year-round caretaker whose home was the cabin where my family eventually lived for many summers after Ollie and Twila, his wife, retired. In those early years they kept two teams of horses on the ranch year round. The big team was Queenie and Molly and Ollie was the only one to drive them. The smaller team was Snip and Bess.
In the spring and summer Ollie would ride his big black horse, Thunder, out into the vast field which from a great distance looked like white grass. That’s how the ranch got its name. Ollie carried a shovel with him, dismounted at one of the many cross-ditches and would move the large heavy tarps from where it had been blocking the water which came down from the Tetons to the adjacent section of land thereby irrigating the White Grass hay field. Ollie spent many an hour controlling the flow of water with his tarps and shovel.
The hayfield never produced as much after the Van Winkle’s departure, and haying was disbanded after several years. As kids we loved riding our ponies bareback and jumping the ditches to take cold water to the men who were mowing, raking, and stacking the hay.
Fortunately for me I was later able to drive Snip and Bess to both cut the hay and also to rake it into wind rows, which would then be gathered by a jeep with wooden forks in front that took the hay to the stacker. Sometimes kids were able to get on the pile of hay that was then pulled up to the top of the stake by a team of horses and then dumped with the hay with much merriment.
In later years the kids road in the wagon pulled by Snip and Bess to help the chore boy deliver wood and pep (a mixture of sawdust and kerosene) to the dude cabins. They also took the garbage to the pig pen. Beef and chickens were also raised on the ranch, and we all learned how to pluck chickens. I was fortunate enough to have Big George teach me how to butcher which came in handy when I raised sheep back in Connecticut.
As I grew older I took on quite a bit of responsibility. Chore boys did not seem to last very long, and I learned how to milk cows as well as how to assemble the separator that made it possible to provide both milk and cream for the dining room. After milking I would carry the big cans of warm milk up to the cold running stream that ran through the milk house. I once found a drowned mouse in one of the cans which I carefully removed!
One summer I was asked to use Snip to drag logs from the nearby woods to where Frank Galey, the ranch’s owner, was building his new log home. I soon learned not to try to ride on top of the moving logs! In later years I was very proud when one of Frank’s neighbors lent him a team for haying on the condition that no one except me would drive that team.
The best of my years at White Grass was when Big George was hired as head wrangler. I had just turned fifteen. One evening Frank Galley knocked our cabin door. My family of four was then living in the two room cabin with no running water or electricity and was closest to the Main House. It has now been restored which pleases me very much!
“This is George Clover” said Frank, “he has just come to us from a working cattle ranch in Utah and I’d like you to take him wrangling in the morning to show him the trails.” Looking up at this experienced cowboy who, with his hat and boots, seemed at least seven feet tall, I was more than a little awed! We met at the corral early the next morning and rode off to drive in what horses we could find. From that day George always treated me with kindness and respect, and I did the same for him.
Over the fifty years we knew each other we became very close friends. I was fortunate enough to have him take my husband, me, and out three daughters on one of his fabulous two week horseback trips into Yellowstone National Park where we crossed the continental divide three times. Another year he invited my family to help him drive his herd of horses from Idaho over the Tetons and up to his hunting camp. He even trusted me enough to let me rent five of his horses to have my sister, husband and I take our own pack trip into the thoroughfare country. I kept in touch with him by telephone and occasional visits until the day he died.